“I met some white Muslims from Britain,” wrote Moazzam Begg in his book Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantánamo, Bagram, and Kandahar. His people contacted me to see if I’d interview him on Clear Channel’s The Dr. Firpo Carr Show. I agreed, but only after I had read his 400-page book. It was a fascinating tome, from the first to the last page. He continues: “But I also noticed a tremendous class-consciousness in how people treated each other, with the Saudis at the top of the pecking order, and black Africans at the bottom—just below people from the Indian subcontinent.” Begg is a “second-generation British Muslim born and raised in Birmingham”…England. Not Alabama.

But, it might as well have been down South where they serve “Black Bottom Cake,” signifying that Blacks will forever represent the last rung on the socio-politico-economic ladder. Or, transcending Southern borders and spewing over in the nation at large, we have the more ubiquitous white angel’s food cake with all that it represents in the way of that which is positive in juxtaposition with black devil’s food cake implying all things negative. (Food fight anyone?) Interestingly, the “untouchables” in India (the same ones I quoted Pastor Russell as talking about last week) are incredibly dark-skinned, and are the lowest in what many view as a racist caste system. The Brahmans and other White people are at the top while the black-skinned “untouchables” are at the bottom. Will Obama be on the bottom as a Black man while on top as the President?

In his fairy tale adventure in Wonderland, will President Obama really be in command, or will the White man be at the controls behind the curtain? Could a President Obama win the war against discrimination and yet lose the battle against racism? How effective would a battered Obama be after battling a bodacious McCain? How would he deal with an economy left in shambles by the Bush Push? While an entire race cannot be indicted by the actions of a few, many worry that a horrendous track record of confrontations left by members of the White race is ominous. Is fighting and winning at all costs in their nature? The answer history gives is not exactly politically correct. Consider these few examples:

The Tasaday: The Tasaday were a people who were discovered just last century. They “do not have any word in their language for fighting. They have no concept of war and do not have any idea of violence. Manuel Elizalde, Panamin head and the cabinet minister who led the expedition [that led to the discovery of the Tasaday], stated: ‘They don’t know all the problems that send people into insane asylums and start wars and feuds and everything. All these things are foreign to them.’” This smacks of what Pastor Russell said about Whites in insane asylums as quoted in last week’s article!

The Lepchas: The Lepchas are a people indigenous to Sikkim, which is a small province in India that shares a border with Nepal. They are so peaceful that, as one source puts it, “there is no word for war in their language.” Since words are vehicles for our thoughts, like the Tasaday, the Lepchas had no concept of war, violence, or committing a crime against themselves or others.

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The Inuit: In 1888, Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen wrote the following about the Inuit People of Greenland: “They hold it atrocious to kill a fellow creature; therefore, war is in their eyes incomprehensible and repulsive, a thing for which their language has no word.” One encyclopedia supplements Nansen’s words by stating that the “European arrival [in Greenland] tremendously damaged the Inuit way of life, causing mass death through new diseases introduced by whalers and explorers, and enormous social disruptions caused by the distorting effect of Europeans' material wealth.”Africans: Though thought to be extinct as a distinct people now, there was an African ethnic group in and around the area of southern Africa that was completely stunned to learn that they would have to fight European explorers who were poised to take their land. Oral tradition from elders from nearby ethnic groups said that the idea of killing another human, even one that evoked curiosity because of his lack of pigmentation, was unimaginable. They were so depressingly disenchanted at the prospect that they killed themselves rather than kill the White invaders who they saw as fellow humans. With McCain parading his war record around, he could be sending the message that, not only is he a veteran who endured years in a POW camp, but that members of his White race has a string of historic supreme victories against virtually every other race, hence the expression: White Supremacy. Furthermore, after concessions are made if and when Obama ascends to the presidency, will he be able to handle the drama, the backlash of bitter White Republicans and others who hesitatingly and begrudgingly acknowledge him as Chief? The fact that he doesn’t have a war record shouldn’t be bothersome given the fact that the last two presidents, Bill Clinton and George Bush, never fought on any battlefield for the very country they served as President. What kind of America will Obama inherit should it become President? Author Begg, quoted at the outset, answers: “Your gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, is one of the most powerful in the US. You fight for the right to bear arms, in a country that is plagued by firearms violence: juvenile college killings, shopping-mall snipers, serial killers, Hollywood-style shoot-outs with the cops, gang violence from all your races—Latino Lords, Mexican Mafia, Crips and Bloods, Aryan Brotherhood, Ku Klux Klan; highest crime figures in the world, especially murder in your capital city. I’ve met soldiers now from almost every state in your country. Everyone I’ve spoken to knows someone who’s been shot or killed. Some have even been shot themselves. They’d have been far safer in Afghanistan.”I’m reminded of an interesting short poem I encountered the other day directed at Barack Obama. It goes something like this: ‘You sure you want to be President, Barack Obama? There’s going to be a whole lot of Drama. And believe me, you can’t get by being the Dali Lama. And even though she’s White, you can’t call your Mama.’ Oh what will be?...Oh what will be?...Stay tune, and see in Part 3…Amen.